Film-maker is killed in street

By STEPHEN CASTLE

The maker of a film criticising Islam's treatment of women was murdered in an Amsterdam street yesterday, stoking Holland's vexed debate about immigration and reviving memories of the murder of the politician Pim Fortuyn.

Theo van Gogh, a distant descendant of the 19th-century artist, was shot and stabbed in daylight in the heart of Amsterdam.

A note was left on the victim's body, and a 26-year-old man carrying dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality was arrested after a gun battle with police that left him wounded.

The attack was condemned by Muslim groups, and by Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende, who appealed for the public not to jump to conclusions about the motive.

But he added that the killing reminded the public of the assassination of Pim Fortuyn, an anti-immigration campaigner whose murder plunged the Netherlands into a political crisis in March 2002.

"On a day like this we are reminded of the murder of Fortuyn. We cannot resign ourselves to such a climate," Balkenende said.

This time the victim was not a politician but an outspoken film-maker who became an unusual celebrity, renowned for being overweight, unkempt and a heavy smoker. Van Gogh also wrote newspaper columns designed to shock and described himself as an "old reactionary".

In August he produced his most controversial film, entitled Submission, with a right-wing Dutch politician, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script.

A member of the Dutch Parliament, she has renounced the Islamic faith into which she was born, and outraged Muslims by criticising Islamic customs and highlighting immigrants' lack of assimilation into Dutch society.

Submission told the fictional story of a Muslim woman forced into a violent marriage, raped by a relative and brutally punished for adultery.

The work proved explosive enough to produce death threats for Van Gogh, though in a recent radio interview he dismissed them and called the film "the best protection I could have. It's not something I worry about".

Yesterday, eyewitnesses said Van Gogh, 47, was shot and stabbed at the front door of the city council office on the Linnaeusstraat in Amsterdam at around 9am local time. He managed to get to the other side of the street where he was shot and stabbed again, dying at the scene.

Police said the suspect fired at another person, and at police vehicles, while fleeing to the nearby Oosterpark. He injured one bystander and an officer before the police returned fire, hitting the suspect in the leg.

A witness told Dutch Radio 1 the killer arrived by bicycle and shot Van Gogh as he got out of a car. "He fell backwards on the bicycle path and just lay there. The shooter stayed next to him and waited - waited to make sure he was dead."

Balkenende praised Van Gogh as a proponent of free speech who had "outspoken opinions", adding: "It would be unacceptable if a difference of opinion led to this brutal murder."

The place of Muslim immigrants in Dutch society has long been a contentious issue, and Fortuyn campaigned under the slogan that his native land was "full".

The country is home to nearly 1 million Muslims or 5.5 per cent of the population, and the Dutch centre-right Government has pushed for greater integration of immigrants through language tests and citizenship classes.

It also sparked controversy with plans to repatriate up to 26,000 failed asylum-seekers.

Atzo Nicolai, the Dutch minister for Europe, described the killing as "really terrible", adding: "It reminds everybody of what happened to Pim Fortuyn."

- INDEPENDENT